Posts Tagged ‘narrative’

Surprise, surprise, surprise! Sometimes, the expectations from a movie are zilch, but what unfolds on screen is beyond expectations. It surprises you, to put it simply.

On face-value, BOLO RAAM looks like it’s straight out of 1970s cinema. A movie with predictability written all over it. A movie that carries zero hype and matches it with zero content. But BOLO RAAM isn’t archaic, isn’t the usual masala, isn’t zero content.

A remake of the Tamil film RAAM [2005; starring Jeeva, Saranya, Rehman, Murali], BOLO RAAM has an interesting plot with an engaging screenplay that compels you to look at the screen for most parts of the movie. But, of course, there’re hiccups. A few non-actors and a done to death climax could’ve been avoided.

Raam [Rishi Bhutani] is charged with the murder of his mother Archana [Padmini Kolhapure]. Raam falls into a state of shock, brief psychotic disorder, after his mother’s death and becomes silent, refusing to talk or react in any manner.

The investigating officer, Indrajeet Singh Rathi [Om Puri] is puzzled and unable to make Raam speak. He consults a psychiatrist, Dr. Negi [Naseeruddin Shah], to determine the cause of Raam’s state of mind and the reason for his silence.

Rathi interrogates various personalities for the case, questioning Raam. Every possible motive that Raam might have for murdering his mother is explored. Furthermore, Raam’s neighbours, Sub-Inspector Sajid Khan’s [Govind Namdev] daughter Juhi [Disha Pandey] and son Sameer [Krishan Khatra], are summoned by Rathi for interrogation. Will his silence solve the puzzle?

Without wasting any time, BOLO RAAM takes off from its opening titles itself. The story goes back and forth, several new characters are introduced, but the narrative stays faithful to the main plot. The best is reserved for the second half. Layer after layer is peeled with expertise. The viewer is keen to know the identity of the killer and that’s when the film fumbles and tumbles.

The culprit’s track is sloppy and a major put off. In fact, the circumstances that lead to the murder are quite amateurish and look far from convincing. Surely, the writer could’ve thought of a better culmination. Also, the one-sided love affair is functional.

Debutante director Rakesh Chaturvedi ‘Om’ makes a confident debut, although he should’ve cast some better actors for key roles. There’s not much scope for music [Sachin Gupta] in the film and hence, just one song merits mention – ‘Maa Tere Jaisa’. The background score [Sanjay Chowdhury] deserves special mention.

Newcomer Rishi Bhutani does a commendable job. He oozes confidence, despite sharing the same frame with accomplished actors. Om Puri gets into the skin of his character and is impressive, while Padmini Kolhapure is a pleasure to watch after a long gap. She is beautifully restrained. Naseeruddin Shah has a brief role and the veteran does it well. Govind Namdev is very good.

Rajpal Yadav is wasted. Both Disha Pandey and Krishan Khatra are non-actors. Manoj Pahwa does his usual act.

On the whole, BOLO RAAM has decent merits [hence those 2 stars], but the problem is its wrong release timing. It won’t stand a chance in front of a hurricane called 3 IDIOTS.

The inevitable has happened. Owing to popular demand, ‘Gale Lag Ja‘ – the rain song and dance number featuring the lead pair of Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif – has been added to the film’s narrative.

Though this much hyped song had created quite some buzz en route to the release of De Dana Dan, it was chopped off from the final copy of the print since it was adding to the film’s length. However, the makers of De Dana Dan were open to the idea of incorporating the song as an added bonus if audiences demanded so and the film worked at the box office. With weekend collections being quite strong worldwide, the final call was taken around bringing back the song in the narrative.

Confirms Ratan Jain, producer of De Dana Dan, “We were clear that the song would be added only if the film did well at the box office. There was no point doing that if (God forbid) people wouldn’t have been going into theatres. Now that the weekend collections are out, we know that there would be repeat audiences for the film. For them, it would be another incentive to watch the film again while for the first timers, it’s an added bonus.”

Since the film’s running length is a little less than 3 hours already, would the incorporation of song be of any further impact?

“No”, says Jain, “The length of De Dana Dan is still the same. To compensate for those 4-5 minutes of the added song, we have edited an equal duration of a few scenes from the film.”

‘Gale Lag Ja‘ would now appear in the first half of the film at the point when Akshay calls Katrina to the hotel in order to share the kidnapping plan and then run away with the ransom amount.

Meanwhile, Ratan Jain is ecstatic with the kind of collections that the film is showing with every passing day.

“Saturday and Sunday were far better than Friday while Monday was more or less similar to Friday, which is superb”, he says, “Normally, films fall quite rapidly on Monday but we have stayed on very stable grounds. The collections are superb overseas as well, whether in UK, Gulf or elsewhere. In India, we have seen Rs. 23 crores coming in just from the weekend which is superb. All our distributors are very happy and we are all set for a bountiful first week.”